Film Review: JOSEP: A Compelling Animated Film About Artist Josep Bartoli’s Experiences [AIF 2021]

Josep Review

Josep (2020) Film Review from the 4th Annual Animation Is Film Festival, a movie directed by Aurel and starring Sergi Lopez, Emmanuel Votero, Xavier Serrano, David Marsais, Valerie Lemercier, Thomas Vandenberghe, Gerard Hernandez, Bruno Solo, Francois Morel, Alain Cauchi, Bamar Kane, Silvia Perez Cruz, Alba Pujol and Sophia Aram.

Director Aurel’s film, Josep, is the animated story of the bond between a guard and a prisoner he meets in a French concentration camp. This movie spans many years and is told in a framing device featuring the dying guard Serge (voice of Gerard Hernadez as an older man and Bruno Solo when he was younger) telling his grandson Valentin (voice of David Marsais) tales about the past. The prisoner who is the focus of the story is Josep Bartoli (voiced by Sergi Lopez), a great renowned artist who overcame many obstacles and was also involved with the legendary Frida Kahlo (voice of Silvia Perez Cruz). This is a terrifically rendered picture that is both fascinating and disturbing and ultimately very informative.

Josep Bartoli was a Spanish Republican artist who tried to escape Franco’s dictatorship but ended up in France where he became the victim of horrific treatment in a concentration camp. Serge and Josep ended up forming a powerful bond throughout this very difficult time in their lives. Josep was ultimately saved from a dire fate during World War II where he surely would have died otherwise.

Some of the scenes in the concentration camp are very hard to watch with conditions that were so terrible that they become quite disturbing in their excesses. Josep endured cruel treatment that is realistically and effectively portrayed on screen. A sketch that Valentin discovers on Serge’s wall becomes a focal point in the film with a backstory behind it that is ultimately revealed.

A powerful scene in the film comes when Josep needs to locate his pregnant fiancee who was supposed to be safely relocated. Josep is portrayed in this sequence as scared and desperate but determined to find his fiancee. It’s a very well done scene that shows the confusion and, most of all, the determination that Josep had and needed to live his life with all its complexity and heartbreak.

Josep, against the odds, escaped the concentration camp and made his way to Mexico where he met Kahlo. She ends up painting pictures of Josep and they form a very interesting relationship together. The moments between these two characters are some of the most intriguing parts in the entire movie.

This film gives us a detailed look into Josep’s sketches and provides some insights behind the inspirations of his life’s work. Josep ultimately died at the age of 85 and had lived a very multifaceted life.

A harrowing scene in the film displays children who take desperate measures for a meal and there are many more sequences of despair and horrific conditions in the concentration camp. There is a lot of torture chronicled in the movie that served as inspiration for Bartoli’s art work. Francois Morel voices a horrific guard who was behind many of the dire experiences the prisoners in the film endured.

The film’s framing device is a stroke of genius as it shows how the younger generations can learn about the past and become more understanding of the lives their ancestors lived. It’s quite an effective way to show how the events of the past come into light later on in life and can help family members understand history better.

Josep is a strong movie about a man who was inspired by a life which was full of heartbreak and despair. His artwork is truly captured impressively on screen. Although this film doesn’t run very long, it gets a lot accomplished in its brief running time. Lopez turns in superb voice work that helps define the character and ultimately makes the viewer become quite intrigued by his life’s story. How Josep managed to live the life that he was able to live which was against the odds is very interestingly portrayed and the film is simply captivating. This movie is well worth seeing.

Rating: 9/10

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